Smithville Fiber Creates Gigabit Fiberhood in Bloomington Neighborhood

BLOOMINGTON, IN – Smithville Fiber will launch a new era of gigabit fiber connectivity for Bloomington on May 28, beginning with Blue Ridge Estates neighborhood. The first-ever residential gigabit deployment in Bloomington will deploy Smithville GigaCity technology – symmetrical gigabit fiber-based connectivity and Indiana’s fastest Internet – as a result of a partnership between Smithville Telecom and the Blue Ridge Neighborhood Association (BRNA), according to Darby McCarty, Smithville Fiber chairman and CEO. “Since our main service facilities are in the Bloomington region and many of our employees live in Bloomington, we are especially pleased to expand our new gigabit services here." Smithville is also an official sponsor of Indiana University athletics, which McCarty said also ties the company close to the city.

The move will launch Bloomington’s first true fiberhood in which 225 homes in Blue Ridge will have access to Smithville GigaCity technology.  New fiber-based high-speed connectivity will be available at presently unmatched symmetrical 1,000 Mbps speeds (up and down in data transmission), all with an in-home wireless gigabit capacity. This is several times faster than traditional cable, which often only offers download speeds of 20 Mbps and 2 to 3 Mbps upload. The Blue Ridge project will be a true fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) project. Other neighborhoods and areas of Bloomington are currently being considered for additional Smithville Fiber expansions.

A Complete Suite of Gigabit Services
With the fiber gigabit service, Smithville will also offer Blue Ridge residents best-quality IPTV (video), crystal-clear voice services, high-capacity data transmission, fast access to cloud services, and Smithville’s suite of services for home security and cellular. Details are available at http://blueridge.smithville.com.

John Grigutis, a BRNA board member, explained why Smithville was chosen. “In evaluating Smithville against the two other major telecommunications providers in our neighborhood, Smithville offered the lowest cost per Mbps. This made it [the Smithville proposal] an extremely attractive value." Explaining why the Blue Ridge neighborhood was seeking a new provider, Grigutis went on to say, “Many residents had issues with poor service with our existing providers, but since Smithville will be laying new fiber underground, installing new cabling within the home, and is using the latest/fastest equipment, these issues should be greatly reduced if not eliminated completely.”

Civic Infrastructure Demands Gigabit Capacity
Fiber-optics networking with gigabit capacity is quickly becoming a necessary element of civic infrastructure. Advancements in healthcare leverage fiber capacity for critical image transmission and telemedicine. Growing businesses can rely on its dependable connectivity to “future-proof” their operations. Consumers benefit from gigabit-based “smart home” technology, as well as lightning-fast downloads of high-definition movies, streaming video (such as Netflix and Amazon Prime), and a host of other services.

Fiber offers a platform of exponential speed and can carry enormous amounts of data. The transition to a purely fiber platform means increasing download speeds from a few megabits per second (Mbps) to 1,000 Mbps. With this new capacity large files can be downloaded much faster. For example, with gigabit connectivity, a full two-hour HD movie can be downloaded in about 30-50 seconds regardless of the number of devices connected, compared with much longer periods of time at lower bandwidth speeds. Cloud-based computer applications that fully leverage the power of gigabit connectivity are presently in development. They include numerous quality of life and business productivity applications that will positively impact, even transform, areas of healthcare, entertainment and commercial operations.